Solidarity
by ChosenOfAshurha
Summary: Charles Augustus Magnussen's price for keeping Mary's secret is John's sexual submission and humiliation, a year spent in the basement of Appledore. Jim Moriarty learns what happened and he comes back- he wants to be there for John, because he's the only one who can understand. Jim's been heavily abused in the past, and he knows how important it is for John to know he's not alone.


"I can't do this anymore, Mary. I can't." John Watson kept his eyes cast down as he stood in front of the woman he opted to share his life with- or at least he'd been planning to. After the lies, after shooting his best friend, he was determined to have a relatively normal life with her and put her past to rest. Fate, however, had other plans for him. Trembling hands balled into fists at his side. Mary took one hesitant step toward him, then another. A frown stretched across her lips as she ran John's words through her mind.

"But John… I'm free. I'm clear. Why would you not want-"

"I can't look at you," John whispered, "without remembering Magnussen. I can't lay beside you. I can't smell your perfume. I know, I did it for you. For us. But Mary… Mary, I can't stay with you. You're free, yeah, and you should just- just move on. Find someone else. Make a new life with… that guy, David? The- the one you used to date. But you have to leave. Please, just for a while. Just until I can get a place of my own."

Mary reached out to John. One calloused hand brushed against his arm, and the doctor jerked back from her touch as if he'd been burned.

_"Scream. Louder, Doctor. You don't want to disappoint me, do you? Disappointment means I make the phone call. Disappointment means your naughty wife's brains smeared across the ceiling. So **scream louder**." A hot iron pressed against the small of John's back, tearing a blood-curdling scream from his raw throat. The saccharine smell of burning flesh filled his lungs. He fought to keep from retching frothy bile onto the semen-stained floor. Heaving would earn him another brand._

The memories wouldn't fade. John wasn't new to trauma, but a sickeningly optimistic part of him hoped he could escape them. Of course it couldn't be that easy, just returning home and praying everything would go away. He only got worse. Screaming himself hoarse in the night, hallucinations, panic attacks... And the limp. His limp was back, and the tremors, worse than ever before.

It had been a simple exchange- John for Mary's safety. Magnussen would destroy his files if John stayed with him for a year. He accepted, unaware of just how twisted Magnussen's mind truly was. He was hesitant to distance himself from the life he was building, but it would ensure his family's safety. But there were no documents, no dossiers, no photographs. Magnussen kept a mental record, just like Sherlock. There was nothingto destroy. Mary drove home at John's request, for her safety and the safety of their daughter. Promise me, he'd asked, holding her close on the terrace steps. Promise me you'll stay back. She swore to stay away, and John was brought to the lower levels of Appledore, the bastion of Magnussen's depravity.

_"Mary's a bad, bad girl, Doctor Watson. Oh, if only you could see the things I can… She seems to have a penchant for blonds. The ex, who came to your wedding. Sebastian before him. Many men from many lives, and yet she stayed for you. I think that's a good place to begin- what makes **you**so special, Doctor Watson? I'm going to peel you apart and find out." A needle piercing skin, the burn of the drug as the plunger depressed, darkness creeping in to swallow the growing, leering form of Charles Augustus Magnussen…_

She packed. She packed her clothes, her gun, the remnants of her former life, and John sat sullen in the armchair, silent and still. His legs lay crossed at the ankle, fingers pressed against his temple as he stared into nothing.

'Why do I have to pack? Why don't you just go back to Baker Street?" Mary's tone was clearly aiming for compassion, but her words carried a bite John knew all too well. He could tell she was furious from the way she jerked on the zippers of her luggage, from the way she kept tucking her hair behind her ear, from the click of her flats against the hardwood floor.

"I… I can't. I can't be around Sherlock either." It felt shameful, admitting that Magnussen had gotten so far under his skin. He offered no other explanation to her. They hadn't spoken of what happened- John couldn't bring himself to tell her. Or anyone. Like the war, he couldn't fathom how to speak of it. Ella couldn't drag it out of him, how could he drag it out of himself? John felt broken- pieces of his mind and soul scattered across the pavement, crushed underfoot until there was nothing left. He was dust sifting into the cracks of London, unseen and forgotten. He was ash. He was empty. Magnussen pulled him apart, piece by piece, until he was a hollow shell of a man. Nothing in the war had left him quite so deeply cracked, so damaged that entertaining the thought of recovery seemed impossible. Could he even be fixed? Tears rose in his eyes at the thought of remaining like that, feeling so thoroughly helpless until he crumbled away beneath the earth.

_ "James Moriarty was fond of you. Did you know you were his pressure point? John Watson, one of only three names, and you were at the very top. How he **loved **you… Not enough to stay, though. Did you even try to stop him, Doctor Watson? Did you tell him how you felt before he swallowed your pistol?"_

_John closed his eyes and shook his head weakly, earning him another hard slap across the cheek. The pain grounded him in the moment, pulling him from his nearly catatonic state. Days had passed. At least he assumed they had. Time was meaningless in the open cell Magnussen had bound him in. He had held out, spitting curses and struggling against the leather cuffs that keep him prostrate, but now there was nothing left. Nothing left but defeat and fear for his family._

_ "Look at me. Eyes open, Doctor Watson. That's the rule." His lashes lifted, moisture dripping from the corner of his eyes. "Daddy isn't going to save you now. What's the rate of decomposition two years after death? What stage is his body in?"_

_ "D-dry decomposition," John whimpered._

_ "Just skin and bones, parchment thin… If you get too lonely, do tell me. Maybe I could bring him for a visit."_

The flat was empty. Not truly- shelves, books, furniture, it was the same flat he'd inhabited for two years- but there was no life to the place. No cheerful titters from Elizabeth, no squeal of the kettle, no cheering from the television. There was only silence, heavy and oppressive, crushing down on his shoulders and grinding him into dust. John went from room to room, flicking on the lights as he passed. When the whole of the flat was lit with soft white light, John sank down on the sofa and buried his face in his hands. Memories rose to his mind, unbidden and unwelcome.

Jim pinning him against the wall of the changing room and biting at his throat.

Jim waking up with messy black hair sticking in all directions, yawning and stretching against the covers.

Jim throwing a mug of coffee out of the window and whining about it tasting like ash.

Jim offering him a soft blue robe to match his eyes.

A pool of blood, the last John would ever see of James Moriarty.

John knew he needed to get himself together. Mary being gone was… good. It was painful, but less painful than the nightmares, less painful than the aching scars seared into his flesh. When his eyes fell closed he could still feel the hot metal desecrating his skin. Every press of Magnussen's body, every twist of the rope against his throat… It was as if John was still there, still suffering beneath the halogen bulbs. He rose with a grunt and limped into the bedroom. A night of screaming waited for him, nestled between the pillows like a lover calling John into its arms.

"You let him do what?!" Jim fixed his furious black gaze on Mary Watson, knuckles white as he clenched the back of his chair. The muscle of his jaw twitched and he cracked his neck. Side to side, a reptilian movement that carried the threat of barely-restrained violence.

"I didn't let him do anything, Jim. He volunteered."

"Volunteered, because you can't be CAREFUL! No one volunteers for rape, Mary! You know what Magnussen is like. You've been trailing after him since your parents disappeared. You knew what would happen to him, and you let him go, and you didn't fucking come to me until now, you selfish-" He took a breath. "You knew. You knew all about his appetites, and you still let him go. You threw John to the wolves, and you brought the darkest things this world has to offer down on his back, and for what? A child that isn't his. Another false identity in a string of many. God, you're fucking worthless! Did you seriously think he had actual files? All that time, all that work, and it didn't occur to you for a single second to just shoot him in the fucking head?!"

"Jim, I couldn't take the chance. All it would take is a single photograph, and everything I've built, the life I've created, would fall apart. I made him a promise, a promise to keep Elizabeth safe, and to stay away. If there was to be hope of a safer life for my child and I-"

He held up a hand to silence her. "Run," he whispered. "Run, little liar, and run until you collapse. Because if I see you again, I will claw out your eyes and feed them to you. I will tear your liver out with my bare hands. I will flay the skin from your bones and make a fucking rug out of you. Get ."

Mary glowered at him as she stood and stalked toward the door. Jim waited, watching her every movement with his piercing gaze. With his head down, and his dark bourbon eyes turned up to her, he looked deadly. Predatory. As if he he would pounce if she lingered too long in the frame. The door clicked open and slammed shut, but Jim didn't move from his chair. He needed to be sure she was gone. One, two, three… Jim counted, mapping Mary's hypothetical path down to her he reached twenty he stood up as well, immediately heading to his bedroom and changing into the Westwood he knew John adored.

"I thought she would keep you safe," he muttered under his breath as his manicured hands buttoned his blazer. "She was supposed to, Johnny. You were never… you were never supposed to experience something like that…"

Jim's habit of talking to himself had gotten worse since the little stunt with John's pistol, lovingly retrieved from the Thames after the incident with the cabbie. There was damage, of course. It was unavoidable- he'd left with a nasty concussion from falling back, Mary's crack shot hitting the blood pack and missing him entirely. She had been a useful tool then, but now… Now, Jim wished he had slit her throat years ago.

"Hang on, Johnny," Jim whispered as he shrugged on his coat. "Daddy's coming."

_ "Sherlock came back… perhaps the gravesite for James Moriarty is empty as well. Wouldn't it be interesting if the two men you love most abandoned you for each other? What do you think they did, Doctor Watson? Wouldn't that be a twist… The hero and the villain run off and leave their little toy behind…" Magnussen's hips moved faster as he violated John, destroying the sanctity of his body as twenty other men sat around and watched. The way their hands slid over the fabric of their trousers made bile rise in John's throat._

_ "Do you think Sherlock lets James fuck him? Do you think they laugh about you while they're sweaty and spent? I bet you've imagined it before, after they met… All the flirting, as if you weren't even there…"_

_ "Fuck you!" John spat, tugging on his restraints. He wanted to get out, to bash their brains in one by one, but the cuffs kept him in place. His lips twisted in a snarl._

_ "Oh, what a filthy little mouth. We can't have that. You're supposed to be a good pet. You come highly recommended for your loyalty, after all, and your skill at taking orders… Silence yourself before you embarrass us both in front of our company."_

_ "Jim fucking **killed himself**! He didn't nip off on a fucking holiday with Sherlock! Sherlock was burned, and beaten, and nearly **died **trying to take out his international operations! They didn't abandon-"_

_Magnussen stood and stepped out of view, leaving John bent over and strapped to the table for the thrill of the businessmen. He glared straight ahead, unable to turn his head for the heavy metal collar clasped around his throat. The hard click of soles on tile signalled Magnussen's swift return to John's cell. Without a word, he upended a box over John's bared back. Razors bit and sliced at his flesh, clattering to the floor as they bounced off his spine. He let out a gut-wrenching scream at the hundreds of cuts separating his skin. Not every blade left a laceration, but enough slashed him to make him shriek and writhe on the pedestal. Blood dripped freely down the curves of his body as he twitched and sobbed. Magnussen watched with a small smile as four of the men licked their lips._

_ "I'm starting to see your merit, Doctor Watson."_

If he'd been thinking more clearly, Jim would have demanded Mary's key before he sent her out of his house. He'd broken into Baker Street years ago. It was far less complicated than entering John's new flat. Living with Mary, and the ordeal with Magnussen, had taught John to be more careful. Jim counted three locks and a potential barring chain on the inside. Sherlock, of course, would have an extra key, but 221B was too far out of his way to bother. He pulled out a small cluster of metal hooks from his pocket and knelt in front of the door.

"Alright," he breathed. "Haven't done this in years…"

He slipped the hooks in, one at a time until he found one to match the tumblers. Steady hands manipulated the long needle, opening each lock in turn.

Half an hour later, all that remained was the chain, which he managed to unclasp by sliding his left hand through the gap in the door. He was in.

"Well… Not what I was expecting."

The living room was white save for one red accent wall patterned with gold. Two armchairs, a sofa, table…

"Boring, boring… sterile… Oh, John. This isn't you."

From the bathroom to the bedroom, every light in the house was on. Jim walked through each room and flicked off the switches.

"Nightmares," Jim mused to himself. "Afraid of what you'll see in the dark… I understand, Johnny."

There were no photographs on the shelves or the fridge. Nothing hanging on the walls. No signs of the 'marital bliss' Jim was expecting. Elizabeth's room was bare, not even a single stray toy left on the floor. Apart from the violet trim of the walls, it looked like an ordinary spare room. Even the crib was missing. Mary had left no trace of herself or her daughter, if there had been any in the first place. John shone through, though; in the spice rack, in the weathered armchair, and in the liquor in the cabinet, but nothing about the flat screamed married. It felt more like the home of a bachelor.

Jim stood outside of the bedroom and took a breath to steady himself. After two years, he wasn't sure how John would react to the news of his faked death. Everyone had heard of Sherlock's failed attempt at a return, ending in a broken nose and lifetime bans from three restaurants. To Jim, his Johnny deserved better, but he had nothing planned. No sweeping gestures, no dramatic speeches, no gifts. All Jim could give him was himself, and he hoped it was enough.

John tossed and turned under the covers, gray-tinted hair plastered to his skull. Jim swallowed and took a seat on the bed beside him, unsure whether or not he should wake him. He hated seeing John suffer, and this… this was worse. This wasn't a pain he could erase with well-placed kissed and wandering hands. This was trauma. The only way he knew how to soothe him was to give him what he had needed, back when he was sitting alone in the hospital with broken wrists and blackened eyes.

"I'm here," he whispered, leaning closer. "Come back, Johnny. Come back to me."

John woke with a scream, twisting beneath the duvet as phantom pain wracked his body. His back was on fire, stinging with every remembered slice of the razors. In the throes of his nightmare, he hadn't heard the scrape of the locks or front door creaking open. He hadn't noticed the lights going out one by one, room by room, leading to the bedroom. The weight on the bed beside him scarcely seemed to exist, until a hand reached out and rested on his shoulder.

"Johnny, it's okay! You're safe!"

The doctor jerked away from the touch, a strangled sob forcing its way from his throat.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, not this again! You're dead! You're dead! I buried you!" He covered his face and shook his head as hard as he could. Pain blossomed in the front of his skull, and he pressed his trembling fingers to his temple. "Just another hallucination, just another break…"

Jim blinked at him in the darkness. It was all too familiar: the fear John radiated, the inability to trust his own mind, feeling he was stretched thin enough to see through. He'd felt it before, just as John had, in eerily similar circumstances. A year of his life, stolen from him as he was trained and treated like a vinyl doll.

"Shh… Johnny, it's me. I'm really here. I swear to you." His hesitance cut through Jim like the blades so fresh on his lover's mind. "Please… Just look at me, Johnny Boy. I'm here. I'm here for you."

John placed a shaking hand over Jim's and didn't flinch away. The doctor took note of the heat of his skin, weight of his touch, pulse beating steadily in his wrist.

"He was right," John breathed after an eternity. His face was blank, entirely unreadable. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow, left over from the dream, beading and dripping onto his cheek, but John hadn't noticed.

"Who was right?" Jim asked.

"Magnussen."

"What was he right about?" Jim knew nothing good could come of whatever seed Charles had planted in John's mind.

"You. Sherlock. I suppose I should have seen it… Both alive, both 'dying' the same day… I was a pawn in your twisted little game. He was the end, wasn't he? The goal? And you two jogged off on holiday, came back years later with a story of torture and hunting down your stray little spiders, but it was you all along, wasn't it? Those were your marks…"

The Irishman reeled back as if he'd been struck.

"I... I'll admit that I expected you to be angry with me, but to accuse me of… No, Johnny. It's not like that. You know I like to get under his skin and make him uncomfortable. That's all that was. The flirting, the number, I was testing him. I didn't- Is that what Magnussen said?"

"Magnussen said a lot of things. Where should I start?" Another thought seemed to rise in his mind, a shadow of rage flickering through his sunken eyes. "Oh, no. No. Don't tell me you knew. Don't you dare fucking tell me you knew what he was doing to me, or I swear to God, James, I will kill youmyself." John fixed him with a frigid glare as his hand tightened on Jim's. His cobalt eyes tore through Jim, full of rage and mistrust. After all, how could John trust him? He'd just come back from the dead.

"Don't be stupid. Mary came by a few hours ago and told me what happened. John, you know me. If I had known, I would have come for you. I would have ripped his throat out with my teeth. You know why. You know I'd never let you go through that."

"Yes, because I apparently matter, despite the fact that you faked your own God damned suicide and let me think you were dead. While he had me, I prayed, Jim. I prayed every fucking night that he would just kill me because then I'd at least have you again." There were hot tears in John's eyes, blurring his vision, distorting Jim into a pale smear as he recounted his weakest moments in the basement of Appledore. "There were days I screamed for you, begged for you to come to me. Somehow. Some way. I didn't care. I just wanted you…"

Jim wrapped his free arms around John's shoulders and pulled him close. A heavy guilt gnawed at his gut. He should have been there. He should have kept a tighter leash on Charles. He should have known something monstrous had happened to his Johnny.

"I faked my death to give you a chance at life. There were people, John, people far worse than Magnussen who had you in their sights. The sniper on you was never mine. He was freelance, hired by one of my competitors. Slammed London's door on him years ago, and he never quite let that go. I didn't want to do it. It's not as if I woke up and thought to myself, 'Let's break Johnny today.' I was going to come home, but you'd… You were married. I charged Mary to keep you safe, and she failed me. It will be her last failure."

Jim's jaw clenched. He'd deal with Mary later. Right now, he needed to appeal to John.

"No, Johnny. You're afraid, and you're overwhelmed, but you know. I've been through the exact same thing when I was sixteen. Five grand from an offshore account. It was a petty amount that I thought they wouldn't miss."

Jim carded a hand through John's graying hair, anchoring Jim to the man he loved above all else in the world. He couldn't afford to lose himself, not when John was relying on him. The other unbuttoned his jacket and shirt. He guided one of John's hands to a thick scar that ran along the curve of his collar bone. John's fingers traced the familiar mark, giving Jim the strength he needed to continue.

"They missed it. On my way to buy a gun, the grabbed me off the street, beat me into submission, and used me for a year. Some nights I close my eyes and I can still see the roof of their van, sleek and black, overtop of me… Large men dragged me into a warehouse. They didn't bother to blindfold me. The van had no windows and I had no fucking clue where we were. My clothes were removed and this big bastard stalked forward and cupped my jaw hard enough to leave bruises. I looked up into his eyes, and Johnny… There was nothing there." Jim's voice was barely audible, a whisper in the silence. Telling John once was bad enough. Telling him twice, in greater detail… It would be agonizing, but John needed to know. He had to see he wasn't alone.

"He told me I owed them, and I'd pay with my body. I… I was a virgin, when they took me, but when I left… I was garbage. I was filthy. The rape wasn't the worst thing they did to me. I was beaten daily, barely able to see for most of my time in that hell. Some days they left me bound up with a machine, fucking me until every inch of my body was burning with pain. I was rarely given water, and food was entirely out of the question. Some days the only 'nourishment' I got was their fucking cum. If I was very good, I'd get mouldy bread. They pissed in my mouth and called me a slut. They said I deserved every cock they shoved in me as they choked me and carved into my skin. Men after men, upwards of fifteen at a time, would have their way with me. I was a child, Johnny. A little boy who wanted enough money to buy clothes that weren't lice-infested hand-me-downs. A little boy who wanted protection. A little boy trying to buy passage home. I would have died there, if I hadn't broken my own wrists to get away. They had me handcuffed to the bedframe, too weak to move, but I'd had it. I was fucking done. I was thin enough that when the bones snapped, I managed to wriggle my hands free. I couldn't speak again until I was almost nineteen, and the hospitals, they did nothing to help me. All I wanted was one person, one, to tell me everything was okay. Instead they told me it was my own fucking fault. They thought I was a runaway, that I was whoring myself out and a client got too rough. Fucking bastards… So believe me when I say I know what you've been through, and I'm going to slice his stomach open and cram his fucking intestines down his throat."

Jim snarled out his threat. "You can tell me. You can tell me what he did to you, because I've been there. I understand, Johnny. And I want to watch him bleed for forcing you to go through that nightmare." Jim kissed his forehead in an attempt to soothe them both. "I'm here now, and no one's going to hurt either of us ever again."

Recounting, in detail, everything Magnussen had done was taking its toll on John. He told Jim stories of waste (_'Your hair's going gray, Doctor Watson. I can fix that.'_), of assault, of the man's viewing parties and the initials burned into the small of his back. Jim's eyes flashed dangerously as John trembled in his arms and whispered of the IV drips of morphine to keep him weak and quiet, of the lack of food and water. He struggled through the hands tugging on his hair, and biting his skin, and lapping at the blood welling from deep cuts. They were inflicted by the sickest of the bastards Magnussen paraded through the cell. When he got to the tasers, Jim had to bite down on his fist to keep from storming off and going to Appledore himself. The picture John painted for him was Hell, but a Hell they'd both survived. Different faces, different men, but the same situation: kept as a plaything for cruel, rich bastards who didn't deserve a single breath of air.

John wept openly as Jim clutched him close. He was out of words, out of strength, bled dry and left with the cold agony of the memories. An ache that ran deep into his marrow. _Slut. Whore. Cunt. Bastard. Weak, weak, weak…_ Words echoed in his mind in perfect imitation of Charles Augustus Magnussen's voice. A shuddering intake of breath, a grip tightening on Jim's blazer, and then silence.

"How long ago did he let you leave?"

"Two weeks."

"And did you go to a hospital?"

John laughed, a weak, rasping sound that clawed at his throat. "Christ, no, can you blame me? I couldn't… I couldn't bring myself to. I don't want anyone to know, and why… What would I tell them? 'Media Mogul Charles Augustus Magnussen locked me in his basement and sexually tortured me for a year so that he wouldn't raise the alarm on my assassin wife'? No, Jim, I just… I patched myself up, slept for three days, and tried to make things work with Mary. I couldn't, I… He used to spray her perfume, Claire de Lune, before he turned out the lights every evening. So I'd get close to her, and it'd…"

"Trigger you," Jim offered.

"Yeah. I just couldn't do it. He told me about things she did, partners she'd had, jobs she'd taken… He told me everything," John whispered. "I couldn't stay with her."

"The child isn't yours."

"David's, yeah, he… believe me, Magnussen told me everything."

Jim kissed his forehead and closed his eyes. "Will you come with me when I show him his stomach lining? Or would you rather stay here? I can bring you back a souvenir…"

John shook his head quickly. "No, I'm coming with you. I need to know that this is… that you're back. Really, really back. And that you won't leave me again." He leaned back and met Jim's gaze. John's eyes were puffy and red, white sclera traced with dark red veins. He couldn't look Mary in the eyes as he pleaded for her to leave, but Jim was different. Jim was home, and alive, and clinging to him like a lifeline. There was no malice in his touch, no danger. With Jim, John felt safe. Safe… He'd almost forgotten what it meant.

Jim grinned and pressed their lips together, kissing John with a tender heat. "Are you free tomorrow?"

"For this? Yes, I am," John murmured. "I want to watch the light go out of his eyes."

A lesser man would be concerned- perhaps even afraid- at the tone in John's low voice, but Jim Moriarty was not lesser and certainly not concerned. His brown eyes darkened as he ran a hand along John's back, keeping his body pressed against John's. Pride welled in his chest, and he kissed John's messy hair.

"Whatever you want, Johnny Boy. Daddy's home," he cooed, "and he's here for you."


End file.
